Derailed
by Spoilerarlert
Summary: Oxygen. She needs oxygen, but the thickness clogs her windpipe, no matter how much she coughs or chokes. His mouth forms vowels and consonants that she can't pick up on from where she watches, but dammit, Mikasa knows exactly what words and phrases he's forming. He moves towards her nearer and nearer. He leans in. And he kisses that bitch.
1. Meltdown

**A/N:** eeeeek, hello there. it's been quite a while yes, yes i'm torturing myself with this eren/mikasa/annie terror triangle of angst once again, so pls enjoy! kudos/comments/reivews are a writer's petroleum so y'all are have the power to put the pedal to the metal on this!

* * *

 **MELTDOWN**

 _Chapter I_

From afar, she watches them sway. Two heads tucked together, silently exchanging secrets, as that damn Tony Bennett song oozes a thick honey across the floor. Usually steely, forged by his fiery ambition, his eyes tonight carry a look entirely foreign to Mikasa. They've _melted_. Melted into a softer quality that she has never seen before, uncovering a hidden element of Eren Jaeger.

"Thank you for coming with me tonight," Jean murmurs in her ear. He presses his cheek against hers, squeezing her hand, but she doesn't notice.

Her eyes are fixed on _them_. Swaying, moving freely, while she's bogged down in the honey, struggling, clawing through the gooey atmosphere, desperate to reach shore. Oxygen. She needs oxygen, but the thickness clogs her windpipe, no matter how much she coughs or chokes. The honey bleeds downwards, drowning her lungs, smothering her aching heart, silencing the message it has pulsed out for years.

"Really, this means the world to me," says Jean.

Turn off the music. Shut that damn thing off and bring her a defibrillator, for the love of God. Shock advised. Bring back the rhythm. Shatter this cold, droning flatline.

But the electricity is gone. That spark has been delivered to a new patient, spurring to life another inert heartbeat.

"Mikasa, there's something that I want to tell you."

 _Dammit, Eren. Dammit, dammit, dammit—_

"Ahah, I'm having trouble expressing myself because I suck at this kinda thing, but—"

But he's attended to another patient, who is safe in his arms, who has her delicate hand on his jawline, who is leaning inwards, towards the guy who saved her, defrosted eyes fluttering closed. She whispers something. Mikasa watches him smile in reply. Those eyes melt even more. His mouth forms vowels and consonants that she can't pick up on from where she is, but fuck, she knows exactly what words and phrases he's forming. He moves towards her, nearer and nearer.

"I'm in love with you."

He leans in. And he kisses her.

* * *

Ideally, she shouldn't be _this_ derailed.

Eren has dated other girls before. Not to mention he drunkenly hooked up with several others. She'd a liar to say that these intrigues didn't bother her, but deep down, below the layers discomfort and anxiety, Mikasa knew she didn't have to worry. He always came back to her, often bringing along a season of post-breakup griping. He'd fume. She'd listen. They'd laugh, and all would be good.

But he's never melted this way, and her conscience is screaming, screaming that this time, she won't be hearing a heated tirade about a breakup.

Ripping herself free from Jean's embrace, Mikasa bolts. She shoves her way through the crowd, each individually obnoxiously paired up with another, charging through the ballroom exit, the clacking of her heels echoing through the hallway. She breaks free from the wretched place, gasping once the doors shut with a clunk. Gnawing at her exposed shoulders, a wintry gust ruffles her scarlet dress that brushes against the frozen ground. Her coat and purse are inside, but she has neither the strength nor the will to walk past the floor, risking having to see them together again. Her pearl necklace feels like beads of ice clanging against her skin as she makes her way down the campus path, towards anywhere but here. But not two step forwards, a wave of nausea crashes over her without warning.

Her ankles give out, and she finds herself kneeling, supported by one shaky arm, retching the contents of her pasta dinner into the dead, yellow grass.

"Mikasa!"

She forces herself up and slowly twists around. It's Armin.

Bless him. Spilling out of his arms is her coat, and dangling from his fingers is her purse. He drapes her coat around her and gives her a gentle, "no questions asked" look. Partly because he cares so much, but mostly because there's no need to ask. Those sweeping eyes of his catch everything. Nothing escapes. He sees and processes everything.

"Armin," she blurts out, but he shushes her. His fingers wrap around hers.

"I'm feeling coffee," he states. "How about you?"

It's nearly 11PM.

"I have a handle of vodka in my room," she mumbles weakly, gripping his hand.

For a moment, he is conflicted. She can see the thunderstorm churning in his mind as he debates his choices, weighing his options. But in the end, he shakes his head. "A cup of Earl Grey will do just fine, don't you think?"

Reluctantly, she follows his lead, tottering along winding paths leading to the Bean Bar: the only coffee shop in the state that caters to a college student's sleep schedule. In other words, a place staffed by baristas until 2AM. The door chimes typically tinkle incessantly from frazzled students milling about from dawn to past-dusk, but tonight, the Bean Bar is empty. A half-asleep, zombie-ish Sasha grunts when they enter, dragging herself to the counter.

"You guys look nice," she yawns, "but… shouldn't you be, like, guzzling down alcohol at an after-party?"

"A grande flat white and the hugest cup of English breakfast tea you guys have," Armin answers pleasantly.

They sit at a table, not too close to the windows, nor to the door.

"Talk to me, Mikasa," Armin says. "You got most of it out on the grass, so you might as well finish the job, right?"

She doesn't know where to begin. She can only replay a two-second scene in her head.

"The kiss," she begins dully. What lasted two-seconds felt more like two hours as she stood there, stunned into paralysis.

Sasha arrives with two steaming mugs. "One grande latte and one Earl Grey," she mumbles, stifling a yawn. She sets the latte before Mikasa, the Earl Grey before Armin. She shoves her hand into her green barista's apron, producing a wad of napkins and two forks, and drops the fistful of items onto the table.

"Thanks," Armin calls, subtly switching the drinks as Sasha lumbers back to her napping spot behind the counter. After four years here, they know the Braus version of the menu down-pat. Armin takes a sip of his latte, wincing as he always does with caffeine. "So, the kiss. I didn't realize Jean had it in him, huh?"

"Jean?" she murmurs, dragging a wooden stirring stick through her tea.

"Uh, your date?"

"Ah." She pokes at the teabag, plunging it to the bottom of the mug and allowing it to meekly float back up, only to send it plunging again.

Armin wrinkles his brow. "Oh, Mikasa… don't tell me that you saw…"

"Yep."

The thundercloud has reformed within Armin's skull as he races for the right words of comfort, but she pats his hand twice, accepting it all in defeat. Any other day, she would resist the urge to shove her fist through the other girl's smirking face. Successfully, she has many times suppressed this urge to a low, acrid simmer after pummeling around a punching bag at the gym. But when she saw him melt into that girl, she lowered her guns and dragged her cannons back to where she stormed from.

Armin sighs, kneading his temples. "Well, FYI, in case you weren't aware of it, Jean actually kissed you before you made a beeline for the exit."

"Well, shit. Is that so?"

Entire field of Mikasa's view that was occupied with Jean was still fuzzy in her memory. The only lucid image her mind can conjure is the scene over his shoulder, a sniper's perspective of Eren and _her_ that stood out clear as day, spotlights aimed directly over them.

Although the entirety of Rose University can attest to (at least) one instance of wanting to kick him square in the crotch, Jean is a nice guy at heart. He goes grade-A douche mode to stammering, red-faced, prepubescent boy mode in a blink of an eye whenever he approaches her to make small talk, and in those moments of vulnerable desperation, she sees the true Jean: a horseface who relies on an astronomical ego to solidify an otherwise flimsy sense of purpose.

"I need to apologize to him," she mutters, taking a sip of her tea. "He's a good guy."

"He looked pretty shaken after that," Armin replies, pulling at his bow-tie. Grimacing, he pulls it loose, sighing in relief. "Marco tells me that Jean really, really, really cares about you, but we both know that you've got a lot of other things on your mind."

"Yep. School, grad school, undergraduate degrees, master's degrees, jobs, lives, rent, student loans." She drops a sugar cube into her tea with each list item.

Armin takes the entire sugar cube bowl and dunks it into her mug. "Eren."

"Eren," she echoes in agreement.

"Annie?" he offers.

"Annie," she confirms. She pauses, taking a fork and spearing it into the mountain of sugar that replaced the Earl Grey. "He's in love with her."

"What makes you so sure of that?" Armin asks.

"I heard him say it."

"Um… that might've been Jean, considering the fact that he was millimeters away from you."

"Nope, I saw it all."

He's silent.

She shrugs.

She should probably start crying now, wiping her face with the wad of napkins, diluting her now-sugary tea with her tears. She should probably pounce out of her seat and stomp over to the two _lovebirds_ , who happen to be ambling down the road at the very moment, pausing under the lamppost across the street to exchange a kiss. She should probably swing her fist into Annie's face with all her might, stopping that bitch from following Eren into his building, up the stairs, through his doorway, and under his covers.

But she only watches him, basically a puddle at this point, grin that stupid grin of his, showcasing all of his front teeth, crinkling the corners of his eyes, flashing the grin that she hasn't seen since Carla clutched at her chest and staggered to the ground. Since then, he had been trudging through an ice age.

Until today.

It is the twentieth of March. The vernal equinox.

* * *

After Armin walks her back to her dorm and after she promises him that she'll meet him at the Bean Bar for breakfast, she waits exactly ten minutes to pass before heading back outside, hugging her coat tighter around her shivering body. She was never a fan of snap decisions until today. She also never really understood the purpose of vodka until today. A thrill surged through her empty soul, ushering along a swift current in her mind that swept away any anchor of rationality. An idea would drift through, and she'd seize it without a second thought.

"Jean," she says breathlessly, as he opens the door.

This hair, earlier combed and slicked with gel, is a disheveled bird's nest. His shirt has taken on some new wrinkles as well as a stain from some alcoholic drink. He is wearing only one sock.

"Is Connie here?" she asks, glancing into his room for his roommate.

"Mikasa, I'm sorry about… what happened this evening," he says, staring bleakly at the ground. "I… shouldn't have sprung that on you like that—"

"No, I'm sorry, Jean. Thank you."

She pushes him into his own room, shutting the door behind her with a kick from her heeled foot. Hardly registering her own actions, she soon has him pinned to the wall, pressed against her, his stunned face in her hands, her lips over his. He mumbles something, wanting to give pause to the ardent segue, seeking clarity to the situation, but clarity along with truth are the last things on her mind right now. She brushes a finger over his lower lip, gazing into his eyes, silently stating her intentions, and Jean, heartsick and perplexed and eager, complies by wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her closer.

His lips are all over her neck, kissing her wherever he can, hungrily claiming her for himself, and grinding against his groin, she accepts him blindly. Jean's a nice guy at heart. He really is. _So why the fuck not?_

"The zipper. In the back," she whispers, clawing at his shoulder blades.

"W-wait," he stammers, coming up for a sober breath of air. "Are you sure about this, Mikasa? Shouldn't we talk about… everything before we… you know?"

"I was damn right," she remarks to herself, aloud. "You really are a nice guy."

To answer his question, she pulls him into a gentler kiss. He responds by flipping her around, pulling the zipper down, helping her slip out of the scarlet gown, and leading her towards his small bedroom by the hand, with the grace and respect of a prince. She notices issues of _The Wall Street Journal_ and _The Economist_ sprawled across his desk and dog-eared biographies of several industry tycoons stacked on his nightstand.

"Business major?" she asks.

He laughs uncomfortably. "Uh, same as you, actually. Journalism, specializing in Print Publication. But also doubling in Econ." He pauses for a moment before quickly adding, "But, um, I tend to sit in the back of the lecture halls, so that's why you probably don't see me that often."

Of course she knows that. Well, she should, in a clearer state of mind, at least. Time and again, she's been forced to copy-edit for him on _The Daily Rose_ , which he shamelessly deploys as his personal soapbox for economic policy.

"We print journalists are underrated, aren't we?" Mikasa murmurs, drunkenly drawing circles over his chest with her finger as she stretches back across the mattress.

"Oh, definitely," he replies, leaning over her and slipping his fingers under her bra.

She moans softly as he brushes over her nipple, handling her breast with surprising tenderness for someone reputed to be so coarse and rash. His hands move across her body, exploring the dips and curves of her torso, and she quickly grows accustomed to these unfamiliar hands and this foreign body. Her fingers find their way under his shirt, learning the terrain of his toned abdomen and broad back. That shirt, along with his belt and pants and her bra and underwear, soon form their own puddle on the floor. She gasps as he kisses her breasts, while his hand runs up her thigh, wavering at her entrance, as if seeking permission, which she grants by spreading her legs apart. And clearly, this Jean has had ample experience, rubbing that spot, that sweet spot between her legs, with his expert fingers.

She's soaring, drifting higher and further away from the reality on earth, insulating herself from petty matters, which include that annoying, blockbuster cash-cow mechanism called _love_. For the first time since meeting _him_ , she has created distance of her own volition, and for once, she feels lifted away from the constant tornado of nagging thoughts that swirl in her head.

He slides a finger into her. She swallows, glancing down at him with a pleading look for more. Her hand roams down his abdomen, slipping beneath the elastic waistband of his boxers, reaching for his arousal. He responds by sliding in another finger, smiling when she mouths a 'yes,' eyes closed in pleasure.

"You look beautiful tonight," he tells her, guiding her hand out of his underwear and interlacing his fingers in hers.

If she was just a tinge bit more sober, she would march on out, disgusted that those ingratiating words tainted the atmosphere. She would slapped herself for this, but her mind is still floating amongst the vodka clouds. A blush creeps into her cheeks. She whimpers, clenching the sheets and curling her toes, when his tongue caresses that spot. Against her will, a cry escapes her lips as his fingers move in and out of her, wet with her essence. He builds speed. Her gasps and cries rise in volume.

Her mind yearns for Eren, but her body screams for Jean. Back arching and teeth clenching, her body wins, and she opens her eyes to see Jean, determined to love her, to ravish her. He smiles at her. She reaches the end of her crescendo, letting out a long breath of air as the waves of pleasure pulse across her body.

"Thank you," Mikasa murmurs, sitting up to plant a kiss against his lips.

"My pleasure," he replies.

They lay back on his bed, kissing, entangled in each other's arms. Jean. Eren. Eren. Jean. Both intense, both passionate. Like two sticks of dynamite that should never come within contact of one another, for fear of igniting the entire town. Maybe she was wrong about him all this time, this Jean Kirstein. While emotion pours from him as he touches her, there is something different in his entire approach. A hint of restraint, reining in his eagerness. Unlike Eren, unlike herself, he knows the rules.

"Jean." She says his name quietly, tasting the single syllable, deeming it flavorful.

His eyes meet hers. Right then, a deep pang of guilt, shame, and sadness washes over her, cleansing her muddled mind. Reality, front-and-center, rears its ugly head, announcing over loudspeakers how sheer, unbridled selfishness went into full-bloom tonight. Reality drags her out of the clouds, flings her back to earth, nails her to the scaffold for all to see. Reality summons a one-man jury, who goes by a name shared by both her best friend and her torturer, to determine the final verdict of her actions.

Quickly, she needs to break free from the shackles here on earth. Get the hell away from here. Escape its unjust rules.

"Jean," she says again, almost desperately. She rises to her knees and straddles him, taking both of his hands and bringing them to her breasts. She takes his shaft, feeling his eagerness, thanking him for his restraint, and positions it against her wet entrance.

"Mikasa, are you sure?"

With a sigh, she lowers herself onto him, letting the vodka consume everything rational, everything conventional, and everything right.


	2. A Formality

**A/N** : Long time no see y'all.

* * *

 **A FORMALITY  
** _Chapter Two_

A formality. That's all it is.

She sits across from him, pressing her lips into a smile as he recounts last night's events. She can feel Armin's gaze on her, watching for her to break, seemingly encouraging her to break, but she holds fast. When Eren's eyes brim with joy at the thought of _her_ , this new girl, and she can't bear to watch him any longer, Mikasa promptly reaches for her cup of tea. She tilts the cup in a way that blocks his happy face from her view and takes a long sip.

In mid-sip, he pauses in his narrative, looking away bashfully. She knows exactly what he's about to say, or rather, what he wants to tell them.

 _He's in love._

But he's tongue-tied, so tripped-up on his own stomach butterflies that the words can't manage to breach his lips, so he sits there, squirming, the energy of this new frontier churning inside, its radiance evaporating his brain into unintelligible mush.

She chokes. Reeling over, she fights off a series of dry, hacking coughs, waving her hand to assure them that she's okay. She takes a sip of icy water, letting the cold liquid slowly trickle its way down her throat. "I'm fine," she insists. Mustering every bit of strength remaining in her emergency reserves, she manages a bright, warm smile. "I got too excited for you, Eren. Seems like you guys have a great thing going on."

A sober Eren would pick up on her plastic tone immediately. He would question her, send her walls tumbling down; always, without fail, he would extract honesty from her. But Eren, drunk in love, grins in reply. He thanks her. He asks her for advice, clueless as to where girls like to go for fancy dinners.

Internally, she snorts. The Eren she knows—the true, unfiltered Eren—scorns fancy dinners. He's a die-hard fan of crashing on the couch in jeans and T-shirts, splitting a pizza with everything on top, save for olives, and steadily working through a six-pack of Budweiser.

Armin's eyes solidify their hold on her. She meets them head-on. _Liar_ , they say, but she turns away, takes another sip.

* * *

Bottles of shampoo and condition in hand, she steps into the shower. An assault of cold water splatters down her back, running down her legs, pooling around her feet.

She surveys last night's snap decision. A hickey, clear-as-day on her breast, the hazy memory of Jean's tongue running along her pale skin, his teeth occasionally grazing against her nipple. Another one just centimeters above her sweet spot, the last stop on a railroad of kisses starting from her neck, trailing down between her breasts, skipping across her belly button, making a detour along her hip bones, back down her crotch, and there, he teased her, make her squirm and writhe until she was begging him. And when he finally gave in, his skillful tongue pulling moans out of her while his fingers grew wet as she came.

And multiple on her neck, where he spoiled her, while she wrapped her legs tight around his lower torso, her eyes squeezed tight, neck craned back, mouth wide open, unable to contain the pleasure as he moved within her, gently the first time, mindful of her inexperience. But once she insisted, he obliged, fucking her hard.

She retraces those steps, collecting a handful of lather from her hair, running her fingers down her neck, kneading her own breasts, sliding down her abdomen, and flitting over knot between her legs. Hesitantly at first, she slowly rubs, tensing at how sensitive she is. From that tension arises a lust, fenced in, pawing at its cage for more. She moves her fingers faster, and her other hand squeezes her right breast, her thumb mimicking those lovely movements of Jean's tongue. Her shoulders rest against the back wall of the shower, allowing the water, now warm, to trickle down her body, while the right wall supports her elevated knee. A groan claws itself from her mouth, echoing through the walls of the humid bathroom. Followed by a sigh, pleasure ripples from her core, emanating to the furthest reaches of her body, forcing the oxygen from her lungs; every fiber of her body relaxes, content and fulfilled. But her mind is elsewhere, unanchored and disoriented, struggling to process the word that floated with the steam, evaporating upwards towards the ceiling, disappearing into the vents. A name that she shouldn't be moaning. A person who shouldn't linger in her mind, especially as she deigns to touch herself in the public shower.

Outside, the door to the bathroom swings open. Footsteps pad towards the showers, where they hesitate, deliberating which stall to use. From the opening beneath the door of Mikasa's own shower, a pair of navy-and-white striped flip-flops stroll past, deciding on the stall on the far-right end. The squelch of a familiar shampoo bottle. Artificial peach blossom.

Mikasa fights the urge to laugh. The timing can't be anymore… Terrible. Or terrific? Terrible, in the sense that she just touched herself, pathetically muttering his name, moments before his girlfriend drifted into this corrupted room, imbued with the power to judge without mercy. Or terrific, in the sense that Mikasa, no matter the overwhelming circumstances, frankly does not give a fuck; nothing, not even her aloof roommate, can obstruct her path.

 _Isn't this familiar?_ she muses, listening as the water pressure builds in the other shower, watching the steam slowly billow three stalls down. Her own hot, scalding shower falters, soon wilting into a pathetic trickle of cold water. That bitch, taking from her yet again. Goddamn these old dorms. Goddamn her.

And, Mikasa notes, with a forlorn smile, a hat-trick soon to come. Twisting the handle, she silences the immaterial trickle. Dripping, she stands in the shower, her skin covered in shameful blotches, wondering how she forgot to bring a towel.

"Annie," she calls. Her pride, dulled and brittle, crumbles to the ground. Her hands, up in surrender.

"Mikasa," comes the icy reply.

"Can you do me a favor?" Closing her eyes, Mikasa urges herself to keep it together. Her dignity crumbles with each second.

A moment of wary thought passes before Annie speaks. "Sure."

"When you're done, can you grab my towel from the room?" Mikasa grits out, refusing to shiver from the sudden chill enveloping her body.

Annie allows herself two seconds of power. Her laugh reverberates within the walls, clanging in Mikasa's skull. "Yeah, I got you," she says, with a silent addendum: " _You stupid cunt._ "

Despite Armin's multiple pleas for her to learn some proper roommate diplomacy, Mikasa always insisted otherwise. She and Annie arguably have the most empathetic relationship on campus. She gets that bitch and vice versa. They've created a secret language, perceptible only to one another. Gaps of silence, depending on length, ranging from mere seconds to entire days, serve as one form of alphabet between them. The volume of the door shutting, be it a quiet click or a rough slam, can convey anything from "see ya" to "fuck you." Words unspoken form the backbone of their communication.

After what seems like forever, the other shower shuts off. The ruffle of a towel and the creak of the door swinging open follow. Navy-and-white striped flip-flops squeak past, bringing forth a scent of peach that lingers with Mikasa, fermenting from a sweet scent to one that is nauseating, putrid. When Annie returns, she tosses the towel over the door. It catches, hanging precariously, just shy of slipping onto the wet ground. In Annie-speak: _Don't be so stupid next time, bitch._

"Thanks," Mikasa mutters.

By the time the words exit her mouth, she is the only one left in the bathroom.

* * *

"Hey, so are we actually going to talk?"

With a _clunk_ , Armin deposits his backpack on the table, rattling her silverware. A corner of some philosophy textbook pokes out of a hole in his beaten Jansport. A chair scrapes across the ground, and her anchor stares her down, right across from her.

Mikasa stirs her soup listlessly. "Hello."

"Let's cut to the chase," Armin answers. "I'm worried about you. You haven't answered any of my calls."

"Phone was dead, sorry. But I'm completely okay," she insists, drowning one of the floating carrots with the back of her spoon.

"No, you're not. What've you done all day?"

"Studying."

His eyes are sharp as ever. His radar picks up on the blip, her slightest hesitation, and he sighs. "Come on."

" _Studying_."

"Mikasa," he pleads.

She shifts her gaze, unable to withstand his marrow-deep intuition.

"Mikasa, I know what happened," he says with a sad smile. "What happened after I walked you to your dorm."

"News travels fast, doesn't it?"

"Marco told me. He came back after you guys dozed off, left before you guys woke up. Why did you do it?"

She allows the carrot to slowly rise back up, breaching the surface of the soup. And she drowns it once again.

"Mikasa, you don't care for him at all," Armin presses on, his tone gentle. "Why then?"

She considers leaving. Just getting up, allowing her spoon to plummet into the soup, and leaving. But she manages to meet Armin's gaze once more, and the earnest care in those eyes instantly melts her indignant resolve. She slumps in her chair, defeated by the stark difference between herself and Armin; while his mind is so honest, so clear, so focused—she wades in her own ignorance, her own lies, her own filth.

"I needed someone," she admits, and to her surprise, convicting herself tears the floodgates open, and soon she finds herself pouring everything out, "He was going to fuck her, I was certain of it, and I don't know, I just felt so alone, Armin. I… didn't know how to process it all, and you know how confusing it gets when you've had too much to drink. I'm sorry, I went for that handle. I downed like a quarter of it, even though I promised you that I wouldn't. And, well, yeah, you know the rest of the story. And you wanna know what makes me the bad guy here? I'm meeting him again. In an hour."

Armin is quiet. She kicks at herself for dragging him into this muck, especially him because he cares that much. Each word hits him at the core, and she knows that he won't berate her. That's Eren's job. Armin, on the other hand, blames nobody but himself. The world could be on fire, yet despite his best judgment, Armin, at the core, is the ultimate martyr, replaying everything he did that set Armageddon in motion. She watches him dissect everything he's said. When he thinks, he's electric; she can imagine that brain of his whirling, whizzing, crackling, snapping and separating connections at warp speed.

She reaches over, clasps his hand in her own. "Armin," she says, freezing the lightning storm in his mind just for a moment. "Don't dwell on this for too long, okay? I just need some time to think about all this, and I promise you, I won't do anything stupid."

"Mikasa," he implores, his eyes brimming with unease. "I'm sorry, I should've warned you that this was coming."

She waves him off. "There was no need. There were plenty of signs, right from the beginning. Armin," she sighs, searching for the words before continuing, "if anything, I feel… don't judge me for saying this, but I feel kinda _free_."

"Are you?" he replies, reading her, casting his radar over her, searching for dishonesty. "In what sense?"

"Of course, he's never put any pressure on me, but all this time, I've felt… moored," she begins slowly. _Fairly truthful_ , she thinks, _no cause for alarm—just yet._

"Moored," repeats Armin, digesting the word choice, analyzing it for double entendres, hidden meanings, omitted messages. "Moored because you love him."

She doesn't answer because there's no need to. Armin knows her better than she knows herself.

"Win him back," he says softly, squeezing her hand. "I know you can. You're smart and kind and great and beautiful, and he's a dumbass having not realized the perfect girl's been right next to him all along."

"Armin, for the first time since I've known you, I think your judgment is wrong. Dead-wrong."

"Sorry?"

"You always use logic and observation when you make a call. I envy that. You know how to partition off emotion. But this is the first time you're letting your feelings get in the way of your thinking."

"Mikasa, I genuinely think you have a shot."

"Armin, you care too much about me."

* * *

Around early October, on his way to their usual table at the Bean Bar, a newfound confidence buoyed Eren's step, lifting him with a certain swagger. He leaned over the counter to tease Sasha as he picked his order. He commented on her disheveled hair, adding a quip that Mikasa couldn't hear from where they sat, to which Sasha stared back blankly, unamused.

Armin raised an eyebrow and sipped at his coffee. "He's weirdly pleasant this early in the morning, huh?"

Mikasa nodded, watching him saunter over.

"Morning," he announced, setting down his platter of pancakes and cereal with a clatter.

"Hey," Mikasa and Armin replied in unison.

"You won't believe what happened last night," Eren began, his mouth full of pancake.

Mikasa knew this pattern. Eren, always arriving to breakfast with something new, always jump-started the discussion between the three of them. Some days, he'd just vent about something or someone, irritably tapping his fork against the edge of his plate for effect. Other days, he'd entertain them with a wild story, something crazy he and Connie did that weekend, aided by the influence of vodka, half going off on how many regrets he had the next morning, half basking in the freedom of not giving a shit about those regrets in the end.

"Enlighten us," Armin replied, shoveling a forkful of scrambled eggs into his mouth.

An adolescent glint flashed across Eren's eyes as he glanced around them, checking for unwanted ears. Lowering his voice, he whispered, "I got laid."

Mikasa's cup of tea plummeted from her hand onto her plate. A puddle of spilled Earl Grey ran across the surface of the table. Armin hastily yanked some napkins out of the dispenser, but her waffle was already soaked, wheezing softly as tea filled its every tiny pore.

"What the hell?" Eren chided.

"Aw, I'm sorry about that Mikasa," Armin mumbled, bunching the soggy napkins into a clump and tossing them into a nearby trashcan. For a second, he made eye contact with her, probing her with that incisive, unwavering attention of his, before flickering his gaze back to Eren. "Uh, I don't know whether to ask for details or not, but… congrats?"

"With who?" Mikasa asked immediately.

Eren scowled at her forwardness. "Geez, gimme a chance to tell the story, will you?"

She flinched at his cutting tone. He went on to tell the story of how Connie dared him to make out with three girls last night, and to her chagrin, he took up the gauntlet after downing a shot of tequila, a boost of liquid confidence, considering that up until then, he hadn't even kissed a girl once. In the end, he failed. The first girl he started making out with on a porch swing commended his technique, much to his surprise, and insisted that they head back to his room.

"The last thing I remember is that she said I have a gift," Eren concluded, wearing that grin Mikasa grew up with, a grin that should be nostalgic and special, like a childhood dish or an old backyard game. But despite those hundreds, maybe even thousands, of laughs they shared over the years, she felt empty watching him dissolve into laughter.

"Well?" Eren said, blinking expectantly.

Mikasa shifted her gaze towards Armin, who seemed just as shocked as she was—only she could tell that, unlike her, the gears in his head were processing at lightspeed, trying and trying to come up with an adequate response.

"Wow, well," Armin began with an uneasy laugh. "You really set a new bar for yourself."

"Yeah, like… I don't mean to sound like a dick, but that was _awesome_. I told Connie that I'll finish his dare next weekend," Eren replied with a mischievous smirk. "And I'll raise the stakes, if you get what I'm saying."

"Hold up," Armin said, shaking his head. "What happened to that girl you, uh, had sex with last night?"

Eren shrugged. Mikasa's gut clenched as she watched him. "Well, she wasn't in my bed the next morning, and Connie didn't see her when he came in, so I guess she left after I fell asleep."

"Who was she?" Mikasa demanded again, her breath hitching.

And he laughed again. Not one of those effortlessly contagious laughs that made her break into a bout herself, but that empty noise, utterly unfamiliar to her. He paused, pondered for a moment, which made her engulf her fork in a tight fist. "That's the best part. I completely forgot. I have zero recollection of what she looked like, didn't even get her name—"

"Seriously?" Mikasa cut in, struggling to contain the irritation raging within her. Beneath the table, Armin put a hand on her knee.

"What?" Eren shot back. "I mean, it's about time, right? I'm eighteen, and before yesterday, I hadn't figured out these sort of things yet, for fuck's sake. What are you gonna do? Rat on me to Mom like you always do?"

Each word, laced with acid, ate at her. She withered under his trenchant glare. Thankfully, Armin, sensitive as always, jumped in, steering the prow of the ship into friendlier waters, but that day, Mikasa felt a rift emerge between Eren and herself, growing wider each day he came to breakfast with new stories of new girls and new experiments. She watched his face, glowing with excitement as he spoke, wondering who this was sitting before her. This was Eren, the boy who still drowned his pancakes in syrup, the boy who still begged her to come outside to kick the soccer ball around, the boy who still crinkled the corners of his eyes when he wore that great grin of his. But the harder she looked, the more she realized that this was just Eren's skin—with a wolf lurking beneath, donning it like a disguise, emerging when classes faded into the weekend. Or was this the real Eren? An Eren whose innocent, bright upbringing masked a darker core that emerged with distance from home? A frustration gnawed at her, growling for _her_ Eren to come back, roaring in disgust at this… stranger.

But each time, when the protest surged up her throat, threatening to launch the mood of the conversation into nothing but pandemonium, she willed herself to contain the hurt, the anger, the sadness. Instead, she channeled everything into perfecting the art of the fake smile, nodding at every story, even learning to laugh at the ones that hit her the hardest.

* * *

 **A/N:** Sometimes, I kinda need a break from "Washed-Up and Rundown" and descend into something raunchier, so here we are ;) "Derailed" is basically going to be a LOT steamier than WUARD, so fair warning! Also, I've realized that I've got this recurring pattern going on here: I'm a fan of love triangles between Eren-Mikasa-Annie, and I have no shame whatsoever. Let me know what you guys thought of this by leaving a comment/review! As always, I treasure you guys' feedback and insight!


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